Experiential geology captivates Northville third-graders

Published 1:00 am, Thursday, January 15, 2009

NEW MILFORD -- Northville third-graders got to touch a 210-million-year-old Connecticut rock, one that might have been stepped on by a dinosaur.

Pretty cool?
From their responses, yes indeed.
The students were enthusiastic as they passed around the piece of sandstone that is part of scientist
John Pawloski
's collection.
They were equally fascinated with Pawloski's demonstration of how one rock can blend into another, working with a tube of glass he warmed and twisted with a blow torch.
For just under an hour each last week, Pawloski riveted several classes of third-graders with tales of geology that made sense to them. After he showed off a piece of smooth marble, one boy announced he has chunks of marble in his backyard.
Pawloski, a retired
Schaghticoke Middle School

science teacher who is director of the
Connecticut Museum of Mining and Mineral Science
in Kent, opened the students' eyes to such wonders as the crystals inside a single snowflake.
He taught them about the principles of stratigraphy, the layering of sand and sediment.
"It's a simple thing (the principle), but scientists didn't know it until about 150 years ago," he said.
Using a jar of marbles, Pawloski taught the children the law of impenetrability. Simply put, no two objects can share the same space at the same time.
The final experiment of the day showed what happens when water is poured into a pile of sand. "I'm 66 years old and I still like playing in the sandbox,'' Pawloski said as he poured water onto the high end of a tilted table.
First he made it rain just a little. The students watched as the grains of sand absorbed the water, shifting ever so slightly. He then demonstrated how gravity pulls the water downhill, creating a stream channel. When he dumped a large amount of water on the remaining sand mound upstream, he created a flood.
Pawloski proved geology and the study of the Earth is anything but boring.
"I thought he was good," said student

Lily Mancini
, who particularly liked watching what happens when water flows downhill.
"I learned a lot. He made it fun," she said.
Third-grade teacher
Kathy Shemeley
praised Pawloski's brand of show-and-tell as "the only way to learn."
By watching his experiments and touching the rocks, students connected to the lesson, she said, and his enthusiasm was "contagious."